Support for Hospitality Sector and Workers

Navin Shah: What measures are you taking to support businesses and workers in the hospitality industry who have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly with regards to concerns over a potential rise in unemployment and the large proportion of BAME workers who are at serious risk.

The Mayor: The pandemic has had an enormous impact on businesses within sectors most affected by social distancing, such as the hospitality industry. BAME Londoners have been disproportionally affected.
I launched Pay-It-Forward to help businesses stay afloat and increased support and advice through my Growth Hub. My promotional agency London & Partners held expert webinars providing support, including a targeted free Business Growth Programme for tourism and business event start-ups. I have pressed the government to raise the rateable value threshold for government support for Retail, Hospitality and Leisure to £150,000 and for a targeted extension of the furlough scheme.
My officers are actively using the Adult Education Budget to support the response to and recovery from COVID-19 such as more provision for job focused training. Through initiatives like Workforce Integration Network I will continue to work with business to support young BAME Londoners into quality jobs
I have made it a core mission of my London Recovery Board to address the disparity and inequality within our economy that has been exposed during this crisis. I will continue to make the case to Government on the need for ongoing extensive support.

Freezing Recruitment

Tony Devenish: With a recruitment freeze currently in place at the GLA, are there any plans to expand this more widely across the GLA Group – excluding frontline police, fire fighters and safety-critical TfL staff – until May 2021? This will enable natural turnover of staff to drive savings and help maintain staff morale by enabling the vast majority of vacancies to be filled from within the GLA family.

The Mayor: On the 7 April, Transport for London (TfL) paused recruitment activity, with the exception of safety or business critical roles. This has been eased slightly as activity to support restart and recovery has increased. However, there are still increased controls in place to ensure TfL only recruit to critical roles and maximise opportunities for employees where possible.
This includes supporting opportunities across the GLA and TfL have recently seconded project staff to the GLA. TfL has also actively launched a tool to advertise secondment opportunities across the GLA and Central Government to its employees, including those still on furlough.
TfL have also paused their graduate and apprentice intake scheduled for September 2020, with the candidates now set to join in 2021.